Horror moment raging elephant charges at tourists and traps woman underwater

Shocking footage captures the moment a massive elephant rampages through a group of tourists before flipping their boats and holding one woman under the water.

The horrified holidaymakers were lucky to survive the encounter during a visit to the African wildlife watching hotspot of the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

The group, reportedly made up of American and British couples, were being taken on a canoe trip through the shallow waters of the delta when they were charged by the massive creature.

The group appeared to get too close to a mother and her calves, causing a massive bull elephant to rush towards them through the reeds before smashing into two canoes, sending tourists flying into the crocodile-infested waters.

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Another clip shows the massive beast knocking a woman over with its trunk and holding her under the water for several seconds. Eventually the elephant releases her and the woman is able to get to her knees while her husband hurries through the water to help her.

A former South African game ranger who was shown the videos said the guests had a “lucky escape” as all four “could just have easily been killed by that angry bull.”

“The woman was lucky not to have been gored, but if it had held her down for another few seconds, it would probably have drowned her. So she can praise the Lord he didn’t,” he told the Mail.

He said the tour group were one of thousands regularly rowed around the delta on traditional canoes to get a glimpse of elephants, hippo, birds and crocodiles.

“There could well have been the need for four body bags if Lady Luck had not favoured them. It will certainly give them a story to tell around the fire for many years to come,” he added.

The receptionist of a nearby tour company said: “It was a group made up of British and American visitors.

“There was a lot of expensive camera equipment and phones lost or damaged, but it is a blessing nobody was badly hurt, but wild animals can be very unpredictable.”

The Okavango Delta is a massive wetland famous for its biodiversity, it has featured in many wildlife documentaries and attracted thousands of visitors each year. The area was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations in 2014.

Bull African elephants can weigh as much as seven tonnes and can stand 11ft tall at the shoulder. Around 500 people are killed by elephants each year worldwide, although the vast majority of these are due to interactions between the animals and farmers as their habitat is encroached upon by human settlements.